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Embedded With U.S. Troops in Ramadi (Get the Popcorn Ready...)
AP, via Forbes ^ | 26 MAR 2006 | Todd Pitman

Posted on 03/25/2006 11:47:41 PM PST by Old Sarge

Sunday, 2 a.m. local

RAMADI

My flight to Ramadi left from a heliport in Baghdad's so-called "Green Zone." For Americans, this is probably the safest place in the country. It is a grid of protected streets along the banks of the Tigris River, surrounded by high concrete blast walls and coils of barbed wire, where suicide bomber-weary tank turrets point at passing traffic.

There is high security here because this is home to the U.S. Embassy as well as the seat of the Iraqi government. Most everything outside, they call the "Red Zone."

{{{ SNIP }}}

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; US: Kentucky; US: Pennsylvania; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: ap; embeddedreport; iraq; ramadi; toddpitman; wot
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And Old Sarge will play that favorite game, "Stop The Tape!" for a few moments...

I am carrying a white helmet, and some soldiers are cracking jokes about it. White will stand out at night, and help insurgents pinpoint my forehead, they say. After another soldier points at my helmet with real concern, I start getting worried. I ask if there is any camouflage netting I can string over it. There is not, but he finds a can of black spray-paint, and soon we are outside doing an urgent paint job.

(SARGE'S COMMENT: Would you have preferred robin's egg blue for your helmet? But, let's read on...)

Later at the helipad's one-roomed waiting room, I'm surprised to find a "customer satisfaction survey." I don't fill it out.

(SARGE'S COMMENT: But you took the towels and pillow cases, didn't you?)

Afterward, I am walking to lunch with Smith, and the base air-raid sirens go off briefly, bellowing the word "incoming" over loudspeakers.

(SARGE'S COMMENT: Oh, please - "air-raid sirens"? What will they warn us of, insurgent planes?)

And later on the same page, it this:

Friday, March 24, 2 p.m. local

Not only can't our visiting AP bureau chief be bothered to proofread his own copy (attentive FReepers will notice at least two typos and grammatical errors), but he also sends the last installment along with this one - either it's another lack of proofreading, or he's attempting to make it look like he's blogging from the front.

And since this is on the AP Wire, these mistakes will be copy-pasted, without fact-checking, by lazy wire services the world over.

I report - you decide.

1 posted on 03/25/2006 11:47:48 PM PST by Old Sarge
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To: Allegra; Coop; MikefromOhio; StarCMC; HiJinx; ASA Vet; BIGLOOK; pierrem15; Brandie; Marine_Uncle; ..

And the next installment of Our Visiting Leftist Reporter is available! Start the popcorn!


2 posted on 03/25/2006 11:51:08 PM PST by Old Sarge (My vigor to fight has been renewed.)
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To: Old Sarge

"...suicide bomber-weary tank turrets point at passing traffic. "



(Groan) WTH?


3 posted on 03/25/2006 11:57:43 PM PST by sully777 (wWBBD: What would Brian Boitano do?)
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To: Old Sarge

Luggage


4 posted on 03/26/2006 12:08:09 AM PST by Spruce (Keep your mitts off my wallet)
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To: Old Sarge
Reporters would visit Danang some days, when everyone was "at work". We never saw them since the Marines would bar the door and they would fly back to Saigon before sunset.

However, the next day, we could read fantastic stories in the paper.

There was one guy that had the sand to hang out up in I Corps though. Bob Hope.
5 posted on 03/26/2006 12:09:22 AM PST by BIGLOOK (Order of Battle: Sink or capture as Prize, MS Media)
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To: Old Sarge

Popcorn is popping now.


6 posted on 03/26/2006 12:09:32 AM PST by Cindy
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To: Old Sarge
In the dinning hall, the fridges are full of milk, Gatorade and canned sodas. There is salad, Mexican fare and pumpkin pie. There are rows and rows of tables. Some people are eating outside, beside a sprawling pool and palm tree strung with lights.

Oh, yeah...we're living in the lap of luxury around here. It's just like Club Med!

Oh...and what's a "dinning" hall?

I really want to talk to this guy when he gets back to the Palestine Hotel.

7 posted on 03/26/2006 12:37:19 AM PST by Allegra ("Trollspotting." A New Movie Starring a Bunch of Kitties)
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To: Allegra
Oh...and what's a "dinning" hall?

Probably the same place that serves alcohol and giggles at General Order One...

8 posted on 03/26/2006 12:50:55 AM PST by Old Sarge (My vigor to fight has been renewed.)
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To: Allegra

What do you do over there. Just curious.....and probably nosy.


9 posted on 03/26/2006 12:58:34 AM PST by BIGLOOK (Order of Battle: Sink or capture as Prize, MS Media)
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To: BIGLOOK
What do you do over there. Just curious.....and probably nosy.

Why, I hang out at the sprawling poolside with the lights strung on the trees around it. LOL

I do procurement for a Department of State project. In other words, I buy stuff. ;-)

10 posted on 03/26/2006 1:03:25 AM PST by Allegra ("Trollspotting." A New Movie Starring a Bunch of Kitties)
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To: Allegra

I want your checkbook!!! LOL!


11 posted on 03/26/2006 1:06:24 AM PST by Old Sarge (My vigor to fight has been renewed.)
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To: Old Sarge
Probably the same place that serves alcohol and giggles at General Order One...

Hey, I've got to go to that place! If you run into ol' Todd there in Ramadi, please ask him where it is.

(I'm not under General Order No. 1...neener, neener, neener...)

12 posted on 03/26/2006 1:06:33 AM PST by Allegra ("Trollspotting." A New Movie Starring a Bunch of Kitties)
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To: Allegra
Oh, and another observation:

In the dinning hall, the fridges are full of milk, Gatorade and canned sodas. There is salad, Mexican fare and pumpkin pie. There are rows and rows of tables. Some people are eating outside, beside a sprawling pool and palm tree strung with lights.

I wonder what his opinion is of KBR now that he's sampled the fare?

He's eating food that EEEEEVIIIILLLLLLL....

13 posted on 03/26/2006 1:08:51 AM PST by Old Sarge (My vigor to fight has been renewed.)
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To: Allegra
Shopping!!!

Well....I'll skip the usual snide remark.


14 posted on 03/26/2006 1:10:55 AM PST by BIGLOOK (Order of Battle: Sink or capture as Prize, MS Media)
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To: Old Sarge
I wonder what's up with the heavily increased air traffic over Baghdad? It's been going on since last night...warplanes roaring all over the place.

Something's up...

15 posted on 03/26/2006 1:16:48 AM PST by Allegra ("Trollspotting." A New Movie Starring a Bunch of Kitties)
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To: Allegra

How's the civil war going. The press here can't get over it.


16 posted on 03/26/2006 1:18:07 AM PST by cibco (Xin Loi... Saddam)
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To: Old Sarge
He's eating food that EEEEEVIIIILLLLLLL....

GASP! Eating from the evil Halliburton trough! The same...the SHAME!!

(What I'd give for some KBR chow...I ate it all the time when I worked for them and never thought I'd say that! LOL)

17 posted on 03/26/2006 1:21:34 AM PST by Allegra ("Trollspotting." A New Movie Starring a Bunch of Kitties)
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To: cibco; Old Sarge
How's the civil war going. The press here can't get over it.

And we over here can't find it. I've looked all over the place for that dang thing....can't find it anywhere.

18 posted on 03/26/2006 1:24:42 AM PST by Allegra ("Trollspotting." A New Movie Starring a Bunch of Kitties)
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To: Allegra

Would you give me a ping if you find it? Not holding my breath.


19 posted on 03/26/2006 1:31:08 AM PST by cibco (Xin Loi... Saddam)
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To: Allegra
I see one of the Iraqi reporters here, a good friend, and ask him how things are going. "It's getting worse not by the day, but by the hour," he says, laughing a little bit. The head of AP television here starts ticking off several neighborhoods he says are too dangerous these days even for his brave Iraqi cameramen to go. More than 50 Iraqis have been killed in scattered violence yesterday, the day I arrived.

Bush's fault

20 posted on 03/26/2006 1:33:13 AM PST by woofie
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